22-year-old UC Santa Cruz graduate Jacob Aftergood works in the newly opened Bike Shop in Wooden West, which has opened as part of the university’s Bicycle Master Plan. The university has also installed bike lockers in several parking lots in hopes of increasing ridership among students, faculty and staff.
With stair-covered hills, car-clogged streets, pedestrian-filled walkways and a reputation for theft, UCLA is not exactly a bike-friendly campus.
But that could be changing now that the university has begun to act on some of the long-held concerns of the university’s cycling community.
Responding to recommendations in the university’s bicycle master plan, which is currently in draft form, UCLA Transportation Services installed 20 bike lockers and funded a campus bike shop just before the beginning of the quarter.
The department also worked with Cultural and Recreational Affairs to offer reduced-cost passes to the Student Activity Center so bike commuters can shower, and is planning to install signs telling cars to watch for cyclists on Charles E. Young Drive, Tiverton Drive, and De Neve Drive.
“This is something we definitely had a lot of requests for,” said Sam Corbett, manager of planning and policy for UCLA Transportation Services.
Transportation services invested about $5,000 to equip the UCLA Community Bike Center -€œ usually called the Bike Shop -€œ with tools, and spent about $40,000 to buy and install the bike lockers.